The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines contain strict rules for how organizations must handle personal data breaches.
These guidelines are essential for organizations to understand when and how to notify the relevant supervisory authority and affected individuals during a data breach, including incidents involving the accidental or unlawful destruction of personal data.
This blog post provides a comprehensive overview of the GDPR breach notification rules, including definitions, types of breaches, when and how to notify the relevant authorities and affected individuals, and how tools like Fyno can help ensure compliance.
A personal data breach occurs when a security issue results in customers’ personal data being accidentally or unlawfully destroyed, lost, altered, disclosed, or accessed without permission, affecting the data subject.
This can include breaches resulting from internal and external threats and affect personal data breach including confidentiality, integrity, or availability.
Under GDPR, timely reporting of data breaches without undue delay is crucial to minimize potential harm to individuals and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
Prompt notification allows affected individuals to take necessary precautions to protect their personal data records concerned with maintaining trust in the organization’s data protection practices.
Based on their nature, personal data breaches are classified into three broad categories:
If you know of a personal data breach within your organization, Article 33 of GDPR mandates that you notify the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours. If notification is not made within 72 hours, it must be accompanied by reasons for the delay.
One such instance is when the personal data affected by the breach is encrypted and the encryption key remains uncompromised.
Despite careful measures, there is always a chance of a data breach within your organization. To be on the safer side, it is advised to develop a comprehensive data breach response plan.
Here are the things you should do to make an effective data breach response plan.
After a data breach, notifications should be sent to:
It is crucial to report incidents that pose a significant risk to the data subjects concerned.
A data breach notification should include the following.
If all the information isn't available at once, it can be provided in stages as long as there is no further undue delay.
Organizations must inform affected individuals about a personal data breach. The notification to individuals should include the following:
The notification should be clear and concise to ensure that the concerned data subjects understand the potential risks and the measures to mitigate them.
There are exceptions to breach notification requirements, such as:
Non-compliance with GDPR’s breach notification requirements can result in significant fines and regulatory actions. Fines can reach up to €10 million or 2% of the organization’s global annual turnover, whichever is higher.
Organizations must keep records of all personal data breaches, even if they do not need to notify the supervisory authority. These records should include details about what happened, the effects, and the actions taken, etc.
Yes, supervisory authorities can mandate notifications if they believe the breach poses a high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals, even if the organization initially deemed the risk low.
An effective data breach response strategy should include:
Preventive measures include:
Upon becoming aware of a personal data breach, data processors must notify the data controllers immediately.
But who is a data processor, and who is a data controller? Let's use a simple example to understand the roles:
Imagine TechStorez, an online retailer, uses a company called PaySecureD to handle their customers' payment information.
Now, if PaySecureD discovers a data breach that affects the payment information they handle for TechStorez, here's what happens:
This process ensures that the entity responsible for deciding how the data is used (TechStorez) communicates with authorities and customers while the entity handling the data (PaySecureD) quickly informs them of any issues.
Ensuring GDPR compliance with data breach notification requirements is crucial for protecting personal data and avoiding significant legal repercussions. Fyno provides several features to help organizations streamline compliance efforts and manage data breaches effectively.
Fyno offers advanced security measures designed to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with GDPR regulations. These include:
Masking is a feature that covers sensitive data points when displayed within Fyno.
When activated, it ensures that data payloads and destination details are stored in plaintext but displayed in a masked format (e.g., "xxxxx").
This feature helps protect sensitive information from unauthorized access while allowing authorized users to unmask the data when necessary.
How it works:
Hashing is an irreversible process that permanently hides sensitive data points by converting them into a hashed format.
Once applied, the hashed data is stored in the database and displayed as "[redacted]" in Fyno.
This ensures that sensitive information remains protected, even if unauthorized parties access the data.
How it works:
Fyno's push token cleanup feature helps maintain clean and relevant data by removing outdated or unused push tokens from user profiles. This ensures that only the latest and necessary data is retained, reducing the risk of data breaches and enhancing overall data security.
How It Works:
Fyno provides detailed logging and monitoring capabilities that help organizations track and manage data breaches effectively.
Key monitoring features:
These logs ensure compliance with GDPR's documentation requirements and provide necessary information to supervisory authorities when needed.
Fyno's centralized template management and cross-channel workflow automation make it easier for organizations to send breach notifications. By using Fyno, businesses can ensure that notifications are sent promptly and consistently across all communication channels, meeting GDPR's 72-hour notification requirement.
Understanding and complying with GDPR data breach notification requirements is essential for protecting personal data and avoiding significant legal and financial repercussions. By implementing robust response plans and leveraging tools like Fyno, organizations can enhance their breach management processes and ensure timely and effective notifications.
A personal data breach occurs when personal data is accidentally or unlawfully destroyed, lost, altered, disclosed, or accessed.
A personal data breach must be reported to the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours.
Both the relevant supervisory authority and the affected individuals must be notified.
The notification should include the nature of the breach, affected data categories, consequences, and measures taken.
Fines can reach up to €10 million or 2% of the organization’s global annual turnover, whichever is higher.
A data processor must immediately notify the data controller upon discovering a breach.
Exceptions include when the data was encrypted or if measures have been taken to ensure the high risk to data subjects is unlikely to materialize.
Fyno provides advanced security features, comprehensive logging, and centralized notification management to streamline compliance efforts.
